The Pekin correspondent of the Times, who has been travelling
in Korea, publishes in the issue of Saturday last a remarkable account of the way in which the Japanese are managing their Protectorate. They have built a railway from Fusan to the Yalu, have poured in immigrants (sixty thousand already), have assumed control of all posts and telegraphs, and are extending a police already in possession of Seoul, the capital, into the rural districts which are not yet orderly. The control of finance has been entrusted to an American, who is about to transfer the collection of the internal revenue to the Japanese National Bank ; while the external revenue is collected by Mr. McLeavy Brown and a separate Department. In each Department of the State—for example, War and Police—a Japanese "Adviser" wields most of the powers of the Monarchy. The people, who are better paid, seem to be content and quiet; but the Court, though powerless, is disgusted, and still keeps up communications with Russia. The principles of the new management appear to be identical with those upon
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which we act in Egypt, and are preferable to those adopted in India in that the natives are not so completely deprived of self-government, and are employed wherever they are fit. The arrival of immigrants in masses from Japan is, however, a new condition which will have great effect upon the general problem, as Korea still possesses a large extent of unoccupied land. Of course everything is experimental until the close of the war; but the Japanese have already thrown open the right to fish in territorial waters, and the internal and coast navigation, both, however, as we understand, with limitations in favour of their own people.
